Thumbs Up, 7-Up

Does anyone remember playing this game in elementary school? Everyone had to put their heads down on their arms and stick their thumb up in the air. A couple people were appointed to push the thumbs down, and then the people with the thumbs pushed down had to guess who did it. Then it was their turn to be the thumb pushers. Now, mind you, this was a game we played in my time, (80's) before we had any kind of cool technology gadgets the kids have these days.  We shared a couple of TV's for all the grades, and I think the entire elementary school shared 6 computers, located in the library, and the only games we could play on them were "Oregon Trail, Pit Fall and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego".

This led me to think of other days at school, that I loved, or hated. 

I remember my favorite days  in gym class were with the big parachute, and all of us secretly hoping that we could be on top of it and bounced up in the air. Sadly, our gym teacher never agreed.

My worst day at gym was when you walked into gym class and saw the ropes hanging down, and the gym teacher expected you to scale them to the top, and back down. I was a skinny, active kid, however, anything involving having to heave myself up 10 feet was probably going to end up in disaster. I could barley ride my banana seat bike up the street with out running into a parked car. 

I also remember in music class one of our activities was to learn "The Hustle". (It's a dance) I still remember bits and pieces of it to this day, but I can't break it out and be the hit of the party due to the fact NO ONE plays that song. I am still suspect that no one ever did back then either. I am 99% sure our music teacher was a hippie and smoked a lot of pot. Mostly because almost all of the songs we sang in choir were John Denver songs, Puff the Magic Dragon, and songs about sunshine bringing us happiness. Although, we used to sing "Rainbow Connection" and to this day, I still love that song and get nostalgic when I hear it.

We also got to go to Casa Bonita every year with the choir group, so pretty much everyone was in it, because you got to miss a day of school to hide in Black Bart's Cave, be chased by a gorilla, break a pinata full of hard candy, and eat 600 sopapillas.They don't have the pinata anymore, probably because some dumb kid hit another kid with the pinata stick, instead of the pinata. BUT they still do have the worst food I have ever eaten, so at least not too much has changed.

The class I hated most was Math. My brain just doesn't like math. And I would like to take this opportunity to tell Mrs. Maske, that yes I will ALWAYS have a calculator on my person, thanks to technology. She thought it was important for me to learn how to add and subtract, IN MY HEAD. Malarkey, I say. Who does that? Oh, well, I found out a lot of people do. Showoffs.

My report cards always said the same things "If Ronnie applied 5/3rds of her aptitude of reading toward math, she would improve". or "Ronnie is not working up to her full potential in math". blah blah blah. 

BUT, I have redemption. Reading. I am not lying when I say I was at a 6th grade reading level when I was in 1st grade, and every year moved up to higher levels. I started reading when I was 4. I can read and comprehend a 300 page book in less than 2 hours. In my mind, I have superhero reading powers. Although, when crimes are happening, I don't think that is going to come in handy. "Stop thief, I have a Kindle, and I am not afraid to use it"! I guess in the 80's when I had then entire set of Encyclopedia Britannica's (remember that annoying kid?), I could have at least used them to hurl at criminals. Except, I would miss the criminal entirely and probably hit innocent old ladies. 


I remember once we had a reading contest at school, and if you read the most books, you won an award and a special lunch trip to Little Caesars. Pizza Pizza, say what?! What fool wouldn't want to participate in the goal of all you can eat crazy bread?!

Well, I was truly a book nerd, and read all the time, so this was a really easy contest, and finally something I was good at. (That field day scam is a bunch of bullshit, but that's another story). I was wayyyy ahead of everyone else in the contest. A particular parent, and one of the teachers above my grade thought I was lying about how many books I had read. My friends in class, and my brothers and parents had to defend me.. It got so bad, I had to go to the principal's office, and one of the teachers and parents who didn't believe me made me give a oral synopsis of all the books I read, or they said I had to forfeit the contest. We got through about 20 before she realized I wasn't lying.

I wish at the time I would have been way ahead of my age, because I would have thrown my hands in the air and said "take that motherfuckers", dropped my (imaginary)mic and walked out.
Instead, I stood there trembling and about to cry because I was so mad they thought I was lying, and I was taught to respect teachers and parents, so I didn't know how to defend myself better.
Long story short, I won the entire contest.

My last thing to talk about, is how awesome recess was. We had a wooden structure, that was about 8 feet high, and I am pretty sure rotted through in many places from years of rain and snow. We were forever getting splinters, or scraping ourselves climbing it. We jumped off of the top of it into gravel. Nothing like the rubber, safe play equipment these softies have these days surrounded by sand or grass. Oh and we had two giant tires. Yes, tires.  One blue, one pink. If you tried to go in the blue tire, the playground aid would blow her whistle at you. If you tried to climb them you got in trouble. I remember they always smelled like pee. We also had these gymnastic type bars, and us girls figured out if you tied your sweatshirt together, and sat in it on the bar, you could flip around over and over.
The principal put the kabosh on that after some dumb kid fell off one of the bars, and cracked her elbow. And for that, I am sorry.
But you know what, we always had fun. We didn't have the cool playground equipment kids have now, but we didn't care. We played games, or tag, and lava monster, or kickball, and had a blast.

And of course, on rainy days, we go to play "Head's Up, 7-Up". :)